today's news on the week's top stories belfast here you have a clashes in northern ireland leave at least twenty nine p.c. injured i meet and go over the city council's decision to remove the british want for most of the. securities and highlighted fronts amid fears of possible islamist retribution after parish launched an ad strikes on al qaida links insurgents and money. the brother of venezuelan president hugo chavez denies rumors spin these days in a coma made mounting concerns how the government will sat without its charismatic leader. and arrested development the notorious gone tunnel bay prison camp marks

its eleventh front of us three president obama has failed to keep his promise to shut the facility prompting an outcry from human rights very. latest news and the week's top stories this is the weekly with me you know. c hello and welcome to the program. they starting projects over the flying of the union jack in northern ireland once again and in a street battle between loyalists and nationalists yesterday it's been almost six weeks since the city council voted to reduce the number of days the british fly those displayed sparking the fury of loyalists twenty nine police officers were injured in saturday's the sectarian clashes broke out as about a thousand unionists marching on belfast city hall passed

a catholic and clave and were attacked by locals police used water cannons and plastic bullets to keep the two sides apart our first reports now from the scene. clashes breaking out once again on the streets of belfast you can see the police are just trying to push back the crowds the protesters have a huge number of police rather sadly sites like this becoming all too common now this isn't going to have been helped by the fact that many feel inflammatory political language is thought to whip up the tension here on the street. recreational rioting that's what some people are calling it. you can see the protests in the background just like the back roads the police responding with the where's the guns on the surface and the freighter again about the flag with the sky and attempted to your good fortune that really this is a much much more than just look he students the director of the east belfast

mission group is working with young protesters to try to calm the tensions kids are doing it for fun or doing it for more sinister motives in terms of to true terms of par in terms of ego some are doing it because it's sexier than the playstation you know young girls are doing it because young girls even with young children we shoot on the streets. to fully realize what the russians can result in what they're just right there are some we're starving aloft and yet it's not simply. but what are the protesters here asking for just one or flag back up on water and pays to get off their backs aids peter robinson these do not really not when he was the one that had to start. their day forty thousand they fought for us to come out on the street to protest against their land and nice said on his back say maybe take all the flak he's called was rubbish and skull mannering out you know but when he wanted also it

on the streets for his own actions we can make for anything the protesters would put it that any kind of pulled from life when it comes to this is the plywood could bring the flag of it's the flag down and not said. we know we're not going to get it back up to normal action because it's the law of majority very. uneasy unionist horns now holds to try to reengage politically but we're told much more will need to be done they'll be the quick fixes here i don't think there's any silver bullet i think there's so many different things need to happen economic. investment politico investment community investment by and by all the stakeholders in these communities to try to resolve the wide draft of issues that are a blight here it's a fall there's been a one hundred people arrested more than sixty police officers injured and millions of pounds spent in policing these riots and in lost business revenue. these what

have been highly localized damage has already been far reaching. this is a new generation putting files back onto the streets of belfast it's a far cry from the darker days of northern ireland's complex that doesn't make it any less troubling. surf. on and on listen to political blog at make a fail see things the pro. it has come from a lack of a consistent opposition in the local parliament what we're seeing here is in northern ireland as a result of the peace process we have a government in which everyone who is elected to the parliament is part of the government that leaves no spheres for parliamentary opposition and so when something like this happens that is seen by certain mostly working class president suddenly in lower middle class communities to use being provocative there is no

political way of actually expressing your opposition so to some extent we're seeing just how are you difficult it is to manage a popular protest in a situation where there is no option to change the government so to speak because the government includes everyone who ever gets elected. france has stepped up security in the country and made fears of islamist at times due to his own garden operation in mali it comes out of paris held the government drive out al qaeda linked militants from the key town of qana a french helicopter pilot was killed along with more than one hundred militants and at least tell civilian civilians including three children a west african force is now set of joint efforts with its troops used to arrive in the country by monday the u.k. also agreed to help transport foreign troops without sending any soldiers of their own the african fourteen year old is expected to draw around five hundred soldiers each from birkenau for sony share and cynical while french president francois

alliance says on saturday their military support will go on for as long as necessary france based independent journalist over the time he's been is french foreign policy is confident. i think that as long as the french people are to. the consequences of this sort of intervention they generally favorite has a great military tradition in france and they've grown accustomed to fearing other people's countries but if you if the minute it starts to get nasty i think you'll find they'll be a very quick a reversal of public opinion the sort of islamic extremists they're very tough soldiers and they've grown tougher over the last twenty years and if france starts to find these people who have been armed as a result of the intervention in libya and all the arms of the swilling about in the in the sahara as a result of that intervention ironically instigated by france then they're going to

find it's a very dangerous place to intervene in mali has requested help and they get it instantly when the central african republic requested help from the french forces there they were told no no we got into the air to tell any particular regime were neutral. it to do if if you had wanted to destroy the credibility of france and the western countries over the last five or ten years you couldn't have done a better job by the absurd contradictions of what they do. french troops have not enjoyed the same success in somalia ways special forces failed in their mission to rescue a hostage in the south of the country it's fair to the botched operation there becomes of secret agent dead along with two french soldiers and seventeen militants from al qaeda is al shabaab cell currently nine other french nationals are still to be held hostage across africa. the brother of aging president chavez has denied rumors the venezuelan leader is in

a coma this after thousands of his supporters rallied on the day when he should have been sworn in for another term the venezuelan supreme court has postponed the inauguration indefinitely while chavis recovers from cancer surgery and prepare escobar from asia times online so federal functions including foreign agents will be wrangling for powering charges his continued absence. shows this war is not a monolithic saying like would dare to say the communist party in china there at least four or five different factions fighting for power and this is one of the problems if we have an unsteady situation in terms of chavez health because there will be an internal struggle for power inside. him at the same time we're going to have more possibility just a horror of serious in trying the module rule that you know as louvered this process and specially our friends in washington all who see it will see an opening

well maybe this is the beginning of the end of just let's get it out so venezuela has been increasing our tracks in those seeking a better living with more and more immigrants flocking to the country catherine of examines now why people are trading life in countries such as the u. was for they south american nation. with no end in sight to the financial crisis many are finding refuge in countries with an alternative economic model for some venezuela represents hope and new opportunities to bolivarian republic may be a surprising choice after all it's been ranked as one of the most corrupt nations in the hemisphere whose murder rate exceeds that of iraq still the world bank says venezuela draws the largest number of immigrants after argentina with one million flocking here in two thousand and ten alone the most. get weaker rosa is one of them after decades of struggling in the u.s. she decided to start anew in venezuela. and that's come to you completely alone

you go that trying to find a new way but you really learn nobody helps you the nobody in caracas the helping hand came from the government a cheap loan to kickstart a small business and subsidies that enabled her to purchase this home that's why rosa and others like her see the country as a place where. you can move more freely you have more opportunities robust economic growth and increased spending on social projects to help create those opportunities having the state on your side in terms of the benefits is a huge thing because you don't have to worry about your basic necessities everyone has the right to universal free health care quality health care education at all levels the government provide subsidies to start up small businesses medium sized business.

say chavez is alienating the wealthy many of whom turned out in droves to vote for his opponent in october's closely contended election twenty first century socialism hasn't helped us it has hurt us to a job his opponents blame his so-called socialist experiment for problems like limited foreign investment they say that it's driving businessmen and entrepreneurs out of the country by daniel year g.'s himself a young businessman disagrees after spending twelve years in barcelona he decided to return to venezuela not just for the economic benefits he says but for the chance to partake in a different sort of future or there are two very different political forces in this

country. and the other is on the path of socialism in the october election the people of venezuela voted to make the country greener fairer to create more opportunities i mean in this regard many venezuelans like myself have decided to return home and so they do showing that for some gambling in venezuela system may be worth the risk you see catherine of r.t. venezuela. now caged without trial eleven years only in from is gone time a prison remains open for business despite human rights groups calling for the facility to be shot down will bring you more on the public reaction along with insight from the former detainees a little later. while the u.n. peace envoy says a military outcome will not leave syria out of civil war the country's not accused of hiding nuclear weapons mon back in just a few minutes to stay with us. to

meet speak your language. programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here on all t.v. reporting from the world talks about six of the ip interviews intriguing stories for you. in trying. to find out more visit our big don't all t.v. dog called.

you're watching l.t. live from moscow it's good to have you with us the you are the arab league peace envoy to see where they can be no military solution to the conflict moscow has voiced its support for the political transition a syria but says president assad's exit kind of be a precondition for a deal to end the crisis washington or fish they say lead in my step down with the pentagon now saying because could provide forces to secure the country's chemical weapons if assad agrees to a peaceful transition there are fears the also could fall into the wrong hands u.s. and middle east experts are also saying the conflict is pushing the countries you

ring in stockpiles a trask say reportedly has up to fifty tons of integrates to raney i'm enough to create five need my bones are at least commentator and blogger col sherrod believes the uranium ratio is just another red herring. now there's a kind of a sequence a chain of mists in our use that are being produced concerning chemical weapons and nuclear granules so that's the syrian regime there's a process of planning for that they are stressed out as western powers very miserly get i think they're buying up all these different reasons for them to step in and take control of stalin tree a country should die type and i do want to start is that so now they're afraid that iran might get this european monetary union and in fact be conducting it now how should i somehow get so i think it's another in this long list of possible reasons for going to two or western states to intervene and it seems that there's

a lot of preparation for pretext for stepping in truth i cited for and taking control of this situation including the u.k. when the u.k. government decided to run for that possibility so you see that there are multiple failures engaged in that process which is one of the really shocking down the fate of syria could be decided outside this blatant. well see when rebels bought by both western and arab states there are more questions of what exactly is fighting in their ranks damascus claims mercer it's from a broader bringing radicalism which is only intensifying the conflict. looks at how they stand off as a trucks incompetence from far beyond the country's borders. she keeps her son's room exactly the way she left it last spring his clothes and art supplies are the only reminders she has of twenty one year old son and. told his mother he was going

to a conference in libya you wouldn't stay more than one week to ten days he went in for the whole week that he stayed there he called home every day he called in the twenty second of march and said he's coming back to tunisia but never arrived at the beginning of april i got a skype call telling me my son was captured on the border as he was crossing from turkey to syria in a group of fighters. that further proof came with the syrian t.v. report in which sami was featured him all the capture example fighters he talked about coming from to go to fight for the syrian people still explanation wasn't enough to lose the minds of his parents if anything it made matters worse this simply can't understand how intimidating man can formed into a jihadist notice all they do have sickness. a year ago certainly began praying and i was very happy because i'm a muslim and i thought it was a good thing maybe after that he started going to the mosque and heard something

that made him to go off to syria official reports claim some four hundred out of the five. controlled by radical islamists who call in their followers to take part in jihad in foreign countries the exact number of tunisians fighting in syria or libya or iraq is not known but the families and friends of those who went off to fight in a foreign land are saying that even why. death is already one too many especially for those who are fighting a foreign leader in a different country the government says they're watching the situation closely but relatives of those who have died are not convinced they believe that the government's silence is as good as a green light for the impressionable youngsters. it's known that the last ten years most terrorist groups have tunisians in their midst the officials know about these things but don't say anything and these fighters went to libya then they went to syria by way of we're talking about more than one hundred tunisians already killed

in fighting in syria. this statement is supported by united nations human rights investigators this report published at the end of two thousand and twelve more of an increasing number of fighters pouring into syria investigator said people from at least twenty different countries are fighting alongside syrian rebels most of them are sunni's hailing from neighboring countries but some have come to syria from this far away as america and europe they get called in for supposedly higher purpose but once they're on the ground the situation proves far more mundane. it's impossible for any arab combat them fighting in syria to be treated whoever gets injured or dies i dare them to worry me a single arab got injured and treated in the field hospital made any we are being treated as. we are the grease used to syrian blood will be for them a city got to see despite its warnings many young men in tunisia still choose to go

abroad to battle infidels in the name of allah they don't go school r.t. in tunisia. and while some people suffer from bloody conflicts others literally make fun out of them a mobile app developer in biggest races again following allowing players to take part of the syrian war with the ultimate goal of bringing down president assad that at all to dot com. and also online for you after georgia's all government was rocked by a prison scandal the country's parliament says free two hundred political prisoners overturning a presidential veto for the first time in the country's modern history the role that had to his website. in notorious u.s. ascension facility had gone tunnel bay in cuba marked its eleventh anniversary this week despite president obama's four year old promise to close the account human rights groups are calling for freedom for those cleared for release and for

a fair trial fathers meanwhile as. polls show the majority of americans have moved on. president obama's call to look forward not backward has resulted in attempts to sweep the past under the rug including some of his own promises i'm going to close guantanamo and i will follow through on that colonel morris davis was a chief prosecutor at guantanamo under george w. bush and he later became a vocal critic of the practices there and strongly supported president obama's pledge to shut down the president he says the perception of guantanamo in the u.s. has come a long way since two thousand and eight when he was a burning and highly controversial issue with the nation demanding action he gets a free pass on i mean the public largely could care less the mainstream media now here in the u.s. . you know is more interested in car dash and then they are and what happens at guantanamo. so who's going to challenge it if we're looking for the biggest threat

to america right now she's right there her name is kim carr does she and. america has moved on and so has its perception of torture polls by the american red cross show the majority of americans now find torture acceptable sixty percent of young people agree whereas four years ago portugal's largely condemned in the u.s. . hollywood has arguably contributed to that evolution of public opinion in the movie zero dark thirty day or trade that the information that led to the capture and killing of osama bin laden was obtained through enhanced interrogation techniques or torture and in fact that is simply not true actual information was obtained through a report based interrogation techniques the government classified everything related to its torture practices which allows politicians pundits and filmmakers the freedom to perpetuate all kinds of myths although

a slew of washington insiders including the senate intelligence committee point out how torture has proved to be ineffective but in america it's often fiction not facts that make history this is more important than reality this is the movies where americans learn their history and today the history in the making is the drone strikes this amounts to the administration executing people without due process often in absolute secrecy in foreign lands with a remote control but will obama's drones generate as much of a backlash as one tunnel did for george w. bush and we've now got have a generation that only knows the post nine eleven era. where things like guantanamo and the. warrantless wiretapping that's all they've ever known you know for a decade now and i think it's just become an accepted part of life unfortunately judging by how the guantanamo controversy evolved here is what made with regards to drones

. it in the us because there will be no american troops dying there will be no public movement. perhaps there may even be a movie or two outings that have no logical capability of drought and once the controversy dies down it will become the new normal and america will move on in washington and then a second. and full mcgann tunnel prisoners have shared their painful memories without saying saying more attention has to be drawn today finds the prisoner still operation despite the condemnation i don't know why i was released and others are not ok i mean like specially when you know that people are not involved in anything you want to know more people have been cleared ok i have the time i don't know when i was released i don't know if i was cleared or not three i don't remember but today there are people who are being cleared and they're not out of guantanamo and i think one can but but feel uncomfortable and you feel that guilt like lingering

in yourself while my house and they're still and the memories in town of course very clearly because of what happened. the mistreatment doesn't go away. i think it's. it's because i think in those create. and deeply wounded will last a long. memories are very clear and when we talk about. these things you come back if you so much for the company that. we know it's very difficult to get the media interested in a story away. from existing. and that is important because every individual is looked up and down and down on the family counts. the message is the concern which turns to the world is a very disturbing and very serious message this has has to. has to be.

spoken against. president obama said u.s. forces will end most coalition operations in afghanistan by this spring and swished a major supporter will assume meeting in washington between the president and. it was agrees that if this new capacity american forces could remain beyond the twenty fourteen pullout the reminder leverage was worked extensively with u.s. diplomats in the middle east and asia believes present isn't a no win situation i think these talks are for the president and his national security principals to let afghanistan's president karzai down as softly as they can to let him know that unfortunately they're not going to make good on their promise to completely train. the afghan military and police before u.s. troops leave i think this this visit is about trying to let cars i know as nicely as they can that they're not going to make good on their promise to continue to defend afghanistan and train up afghanistan's military i think part of it is that

president obama you know after he agreed to surge the troops into afghanistan i think pretty quickly realized that he didn't realize even before the surge that there is no military solution for the united states in afghanistan i think for an american population that is both battered financially and very tired of endless wars and occupations this is something that will. basically go go forward without a hitch in terms of american public opinion. olenda said to drive the recovery coming look at dublin's actives as it takes over europe's rotating presidency and made its own economic turmoil. on closing up as rival palestinian groups hamas and fatah try to break their divisions and look into how israel's occupation policies may have brought the function's closer to gather all the data from the

right. government no longer represents the people of the people we're going to take the term. we. leave. the room. the way our economic system or at least the number. one.